


Like a Kid in a Candy Store (1/1)

by earlgreytea68



Series: Chaosverse [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor makes a mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Kid in a Candy Store (1/1)

**Author's Note:**

> During the last Support Stacie fic, you could win a fic of your very own for twenty bucks. This is [](http://ladychi.livejournal.com/profile)[**ladychi**](http://ladychi.livejournal.com/)  's. Her prompt was: candy store.
> 
> Thanks to jlrpuck for the typically brilliant beta, and to Kristin and [](http://chicklet73.livejournal.com/profile)[**chicklet73**](http://chicklet73.livejournal.com/)   for the feedback.

He was not there to get distracted. Nevertheless, he found himself peering at this particular display and almost dancing with glee. “Spaceships!” he proclaimed. “Isn’t that brilliant!”

The candy store had been quiet. The two clerks and one other customer all looked up at his exclamation.

The Doctor was oblivious to the possibility that he was causing a commotion with his enthusiasm. “I cannot believe that, in all these years, I’ve never been in a proper Earth candy store! This is _amazing_!” He looked at a rainbow of suckers arranged before him. “Brilliant!” He reached out and took one of each color.

The workers exchanged a look and tried to go back to their inventorying.

The Doctor had now discovered: “Straws! Filled with sugar! Honestly, how do you _think_ of these things?” He grabbed a handful, and noticed the humans in the store were staring at him. “I don’t mean, you know, _you_ you, I know you didn’t _invent_ these things, I’m just saying you _humans_ are absolutely amazing. Smashing little imaginations, the lot of you have.” He gestured with his suckers and his straws of sugar, and then, “Oh! Oh! Excellent! _Fudge_! Granted, not anything utterly ingenious about fudge, but it is brilliant, isn’t it?” He examined the display case for a second. “One pound.”

“Of which kind, sir?” asked one of the clerks, with exaggerated politeness.

“Oh, each kind. Of course. And all of these.” He laid the suckers and straws with sugar on the counter. “And possibly more, I’m not done yet.” His attention had been attracted by something else. “Are these _apples_ , dipped in _caramel_ and _chocolate_ and _sprinkles_?”

There was a moment of silence, then one of the clerks answered him, “Yes.”

“At least a dozen of these, too, I’m going to need. Gum drops!” The Doctor abruptly remembered that he was not there to be distracted. “But. Actually.” He walked back over to the counter. “I am here for a reason.”

“Really?” asked the clerk, with a trace of sarcasm. “What could that be?”

“St. Valentine’s Day,” pronounced the Doctor, as if announcing a day of Great Doom.

“Was yesterday,” finished the clerk.

“I know,” agreed the Doctor, mournfully. “That’s the problem.”

“Ah.” Now the humans in the store all smiled at him in sympathy.

“Do you have any Valentine’s chocolate left over? I imagine it would be in the shape of a heart. Welllllll, not _really_. Not _technically_. It doesn’t actually _look_ like the heart that’s beating in your body at all. More likely, it’s supposed to resemble the shape of a spread vulva.”

The humans were all staring at him again.

“Anyway,” he said. “Have you got any?”

The clerk in front of him cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, over there. Half-off.”

The display was on the opposite side of the store from where the Doctor had entered, and he frowned at it before selecting two large stylized hearts filled with chocolate.

“Two?” said the clerk. “I hope you get double the apology.”

***

Rose and Jackie were both in floods of tears when the Doctor arrived back at the flat. He regarded them in alarm. “What’s the matter?”

“ _Steel Magnolias_ ,” Rose sniffled into a tissue. “This is the _best_ movie.”

“Ah. Right-o. Ready to go?”

Rose and Jackie both stared at him. “It’s the middle of the movie!” Rose protested.

“Oh. Okay. Well. Okay.” And he walked into the TARDIS.

Rose stared after him, and then looked back at the movie, ignoring the knowing look her mother sent her. Mum had been sending her knowing looks the entirety of the visit. Well, ever since realizing that the Doctor had forgotten Valentine’s Day. Not so much forgotten it as willfully ignored it. Something about the roots of the holiday, and the commercialization, and something about how by the 72nd century Valentine’s Day had turned into a day when people did cruel things to their lovers, or something.

Rose hadn’t really thought about Valentine’s Day. The visit had happened to coincide with it, and she hadn’t realized how much she had been looking forward to celebrating a Valentine’s Day until it came and went with no acknowledgment by the Doctor. The truth was that their relationship was…complicated. She wasn’t sure she would have called it “dating,” but it was certainly more than just “shagging.” Whatever it was, she had subconsciously thought it worthy of a Valentine’s Day acknowledgment. She had bought him a card and a new tie she’d selected with care, and that she’d presented him with the day before, and he’d been delighted and seemed to think it was a just-because gift, not linked to the holiday. Rose, crestfallen, had debated whether or not to tell him he had missed the day—sometimes, he just didn’t _know_ these things—and then her mother had solved it for her, drawling loudly in the Doctor’s hearing about how she supposed you couldn’t expect an alien to do anything like buy chocolates for Valentine’s Day. _You can’t even see fit to get my daughter a card, like a decent bloke?_ Jackie had demanded, and the Doctor had gaped at her and Rose, cringing, had just wanted to die.

The truth was that she had never had a boyfriend who had done Valentine’s Day really well. Jimmy Stone didn’t count at all, and Mickey had been well-meaning but thought a proper celebration was a few pints down at the pub and a fumbling sexual encounter back at his place. The Doctor was not a proper boyfriend, but he could do things right when he wanted to—earthquake notwithstanding, their first time had been a gorgeous effort on his part—and maybe, _maybe_ , she had secretly been hoping that he’d had something incredible up his sleeve, and had purposely planned the trip home for Valentine’s Day.

No such luck.

When the movie ended, Rose, still wiping tears away, wandered into the TARDIS. She found the Doctor in their bedroom, in the chair by the fireplace, an intricate set of whirring instruments that he appeared to be oiling on the table next to him. 

He looked up at her, and took off his specs to see her more clearly. “Movie over?”

“Yes,” she affirmed.

“Good.” He leaped to his feet. “I’ve got somewhere to take you.”

“I haven’t told Mum good-bye!” Rose protested, as he raced out of the room.

“Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder. “We’ll be right back.”

Rose followed him to the control room. “But where are we going?”

He was dancing around the console now. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Rose lifted her eyebrows and sat in the captain’s chair, curious now. The Doctor pounded the console with the mallet a few times, and the TARDIS landed with its usual thud. The Doctor swung the monitor toward him, studied it, then nodded once. “Excellent. Right on time.” He straightened and swept his arm toward the door. “After you.”

Rose walked over to the door, opened it, and peered out. It was dark outside. Confused, she stepped out onto what seemed to her to be an expanse of metal woven together. They were high up, and there was a city spread beneath them, but a very dim one. Rose recognized the feeble glow of a time before electricity. Or, at least, widespread electricity.

“It’s 1889, in Paris,” announced the Doctor. “And we—you and I—are the first guests on the Eiffel Tower.”

Rose uttered a soft gasp and looked up, at the tower she could now make out rising above her head. “ _Oh_ ,” she said.

“D’you like it?” he asked. “I thought you would like it. It’s very…romantic, isn’t it?”

She turned to him. “Doctor—” she began.

He held up a hand. “Wait a tic.” He darted back into the TARDIS, and in a second music began drifting out of it. _Moonlight Serenade_.

She smiled as he re-appeared, looking pleased with himself. “Not bad, eh?” he asked.

“No. Not bad.” He put one hand on her waist and pulled her to him, clasping her other hand loosely in his, and began swaying them gently to the beat. “Is this about the Valentine’s Day thing?” she asked.

“No. Absolutely not. I am very romantic, Rose. _Very_ romantic. Haven’t you noticed?”

“It comes and it goes, this romantic side of you,” she remarked, dryly.

He looked offended. “Just because I don’t understand the point of a _single day_ when I’m supposed to be extra-nice to you. You sell yourself short. Your _mother_ sells you short. She should be yelling at me for not buying you chocolates every day, not just one particular day.”

“Let’s not give her more reasons to yell at you, yeah?” said Rose.

“Excellent point. I’m just pointing out that…that…” He fell silent, looking at her.

“That?” prompted Rose.

“You are very, very beautiful,” he murmured, softly.

She leaned up and kissed him and then snuggled her head against his shoulder. “This is nice,” she said. “Thank you.”

He swayed her in silence for a second. Then he ventured, “D’you remember the first time we danced to this song?”

She smiled against him. “I do. I practically had to force you.”

“That’s not true,” he protested.

“Yes. It is.” She lifted her head and looked at him, smiling.

“It’s only because you were…terrifying.”

“’Terrifying,’” she repeated, still smiling. “I’m going to remind you that you said that, the next time you try to give me your Oncoming Storm routine.”

He smiled the tiniest bit, before using his hand at her waist to nudge her closer to him, forcing her to rest her head back on his shoulder. Rose, in the silence that followed, realized that maybe he’d been serious, that maybe teasing him had been the wrong response. “Why ‘terrifying’?” she asked, finally.

She felt him rub his cheek against the top of her head. “Because you’re…Rose Tyler.”

That wasn’t a response of all. “What does that mean?”

She felt him shrug.

She let silence stretch for another second, then said, “Did you think we’d end up here?”

“Where? The Eiffel Tower?”

“No. _Here_.”

She thought he was going to dodge answering, but he replied, finally, “No. I didn’t think…But I could never predict you. That’s why you’re terrifying. I can’t predict you.”

She tipped her head back to look at him again. “Can you predict everyone else?”

“No,” he admitted. “But I can predict you least of all.” He looked at her solemnly for a second. “And, of course, I’d no idea I was going to regenerate and be so sexy and charming and flash.” He dipped her suddenly, and she giggled and clutched at his shoulders. “Do you trust me?” he whispered, holding her in the dip, and her giggles faded. “Not to let you fall?”

“Yes,” she whispered back.

He kept her in the dip for another moment, before straightening her and kissing her deeply. He pulled back a breath. “I have something for you.”

“Mmm,” she said, rubbing against him. “I know.”

He laughed. “No, not that. Wait a second.” He took a small step away from her, letting go of her and reaching into his inside coat pocket. He pulled out a red heart of chocolates and handed it to her.

She smiled as she accepted it. “Thank you.”

“Hang on.” He reached in again and pulled out another.

“Two?” she said, in surprised, accepting that one as well.

“Two hearts,” he pointed out, gesturing to his chest.

“Oh, well, that’s just adorable,” she remarked, and leaned forward and kissed him.

“You know what they say about the heart?” murmured the Doctor, against her lips.

“What?”

“It resembles a spread vulva.”

“Did you say that to the people at the candy store?”

He paused. “What makes you think that?”

“Because it sounds exactly like the kind of thing you would say. Did you?”

“Wellllllll, I—Yes! But only because it’s true!” he defended himself when she started laughing.

“I know.” She pushed his fringe off his forehead fondly. “Do you think they knew what a ‘spread vulva’ even is?”

“Oh, I should hope so. If they don’t, what a sad world they exist in.”

She chuckled and tugged on his bottom lip. “Does it really resemble a spread vulva?”

“I haven’t reached a conclusion yet,” he told her. “I may have to conduct a fairly—thorough--investigation.” He punctuated the point by being quite thorough with his tongue.

“When?”

“Now?” he suggested.

“Excellent.”

One human heart, two Time Lord hearts, and two boxes in the shape of a spread vulva entered the TARDIS.


End file.
